We had to say goodbye to her outside her class, and she sat right down and signed into the attendance book. We got a quick second look over her shoulder, and she blew us a kiss, then she was off to do her thing. 
Lyla, on the other hand, didn't fare so well. As soon as we dropped Nina off in her classroom and turned to leave, Lyla started sobbing. She was crying and telling us that she missed Nina. She cried about it most of the way home, but since she takes a nap during Nina's school time, she really didn't end up missing that much time with her at all.
After picking Nina up at 3:30, I was full of questions and wanted to hear all about her first day. Suprisingly for Nina, she didn't have a whole lot to say about it at first. She said that they had fun, she told me what they had for snack (probably the biggest part of a preschooler's day), and that she made a new friend. Other than that, there wasn't a whole lot of information shared. Much later in the day while we were finishing up dinner, she started talking more about it, so we just may end up getting information about her day in istallments as she's ready to chat about it.
She did get sent home with the Show and Tell bag, so we had to pick a favorite toy this evening for her to take in with her that she'll share three clues with to the class to see if they can guess what the toy is. Right now, she's planning on taking her Zoe puppet, but she's still a little worried that her Froggie might be sad to not go to school too, so we'll have to see what the final decision is come morning. All in all, I think she had a fun day, and she said she's looking forward to going back tomorrow.
...here she was, sleeping soundly, with her headband on. When she went to bed, she didn't even have it, so she must have found it, put it on, and fallen asleep. Too funny.
Nina and Lyla were very happy to see their cousins again and picked up right where they left off from last weekend.
All four girls are scooter riders, so they spent a lot of the afternoon riding up and down our sidewalks.
Nina and Emme rode in princess dresses with their scooters connected by a string of balloons tied together.
We all enjoyed sitting out and enjoying the beautiful day, chatting, and eating lots of good food.
...and Mark and Garland got to some serious work on their golf clubs.
We were sad to see Shen, G, and the girls head out this morning. We should have had them stay longer because after they left, our Labor Day went downhill for a bit. We had the idea of going to Harpers Ferry, so we got lunches packed, everyone in the car, and we headed off to spend the rest of the afternoon there. Well, once we got there, we couldn't get to the historic town without taking the shuttle bus, but they wouldn't allow our picnic bag on the shuttle bus, so we tried to find another spot to picnic and hike around. We ended up climbing down a super steep and rocky path to get to the river where there was no place to sit or walk alongside the river, so we climbed rocks (not easy with all our stuff and two little kids) in the river to try to get to a large, flat rock to sit on and eat. When trying to do that, I fell in the water and got soaked up to my waist, then once we finally got to the rock, we broke out our lunch and were immediately ambushed by tons of bees. Not good. So, it was all the way back to the car - across the rocks and up the steep, rocky slope - just to drive home and eat our lunch in the car. Since Mark had promised the girls ice cream in Harpers Ferry, once we got home, he dropped the wet and soggy wife off at home and took the girls out for ice cream at the local Maggie Moos. That seemed to at least lessen the pain of our failed trip to Harpers Ferry.
Nina has had quite the active summer. You saw the vidoes a couple months ago just after she decided to put her face in the water at the pool, now she is a swimming fishie. She can swim almost half a length of the pool before getting tired. She swims, takes breaths, and keeps swimming until she reaches me, then she wants to turn around and swim back. She wants to do that over and over. She's made huge progress this summer at the pool. She's also zipping all over the neighborhood on her scooter. She used to ride a three-wheeled scooter, and we got her a two-wheeled one for her birthday, but it took her seeing it in the garage for about a month before she gave over to riding it. It required a lot more balance, but now she's racing around the sidewalks like a pro. She still likes having her "school time" during the day while Lyla naps, and is quite the good little student. She will start preschool this year (going three days a week) and will actually play on a little soccer team in the fall. She had been asking us about playing on a team, and this time I actually didn't miss registration. I thought I had plenty of time to look into it, clicked on the site, and saw that day was the last day of open registration - so much for thinking I was ahead of the game! She still asks questions about EVERYTHING. It can really get exhausting, and just ask my mom about trying to watch a movie with her (which she experienced in the car on the way to NC). The questions never stop. However, she's growing up so fast and is a great daughter and a good big sister. 
While not a baby and not completely a big girl yet, Lyla is in the land of little girl. As a baby and early toddler, she used to be so shy around others, but now she's warming up to people a bit faster. Around those she sees a lot (our friends on the street, my family, etc), she feels pretty good about playing without Mark and I in view. But if others are in the mix who she doesn't know every well, she's still much more likely to want to stay real close to where either Mark or I are at. She's also more reserved when other kids are over our house to play. However, once everyone leaves or once she's back in her comfort zone, she's running, screaming, shouting, and being a nut. She loves to be silly, and she loves to copy everything Nina does. She mimics what Nina says, her manerisms, her dance moves, etc. She also still loves to snuggle occasionally. Sometimes she'll just want you to hold her while she puts her head on your shoulder. She loves to ride Nina's old 3-wheeled scooter with the other kids on the street, and she likes climbing, swinging, and hanging at the playground. Contrary to her sister, she's pretty tough when she has a crash, scrapes her knees/ elbows, or gets any other sort of boo boo. It might be an adjustment for her this fall to see Nina get to participate in things she's not old enough to do yet (soccer & preschool), but she'll be right there before we know it! 
After a quality dining experience at the Manassas McDonalds, Nina and I made our way to the skating rink. We got there and rented our skates and got ready for fun. Within five minutes of our being there, the lights went off, the strobe light came on, the black lights were fired up, and the jamms started pumping. I took this little video right before we started skating. As soon as I put the camera in the locker, the skating floor was practically filled with people. I wish I could have just sat there all night with a video camera. It was hysterical. I had NO IDEA that people still take skating so seriously. Let me set the scene - you've got the idea with the lights and the music, guys in tank tops and jean shorts, girls wearing flashing necklaces and air brush painted t-shirts, and it's dark in there and some guys are still skating with their sunglasses on. People were seriously getting their skate on to the tune of all the latest jamms. There was an occasional "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" but, other than that, I felt my age (which I didn't think was that old). We managed to survive our skating experience by staying to the very outermost part of the rink, taking it very slow and trying not to get clobbered by the die-hard quad-skaters (I also had to learn the new lingo for roller skates). I think it was all a little overwhelming for Nina, so after a valient effort to learn to skate, we took a seat on a bench, took off our quads, and took in some seriously good people watching. We exited our Manassas date night with a drive-thru visit to Checkers for a milk shake. It was quite a night!
These are just two videos of the girls having fun (for anyone interested). The first one is Nina working on her golf swing, and the second one is of them dancing to the video of the chipettes singing the Single Ladies. Watch out, Beyonce, Lyla's chicken wing moves might start popping up on all the latest dance videos!
We have a pretty set routine in the morning. After the girls finish breakfast, I get everyone dressed, teeth brushed, beds made, etc. then we head down to the basement where they play in the toy room while I do my exercise on our elliptical machine down there. Yesterday must have been a pretty rough day for the workout as I was so focused on the fact that the "time elapsed" part of the elliptical's display screen seemed to be defying the laws of time by moving so slow, that I didn't realize what was developing right next to me. Nina and Lyla had taken every single book out of the toy room bookshelf and were making a path that stretched from one room in the basement to the next. They seemed to be playing so well together and happily chattering to each other as I saw them running back and forth that I didn't think to actually notice why that was happening. (FYI - in the Simpson household when things seem to be "too good to be true" generally there is a reason for that and one goes looking to see what kind of mischief is being performed instead.)
This week we also got a visit from Uncle Bo who came over to have dinner with us. The girls were very excited to have him over, and they used the opportunity to show him their pillow pets then pillow fight him with the pillow pets. After the pillow fight, they gave a little performance of their dancing to the Chipettes singing Single Ladies. It was a lot of fun to have some good visitors this week! 
The kids had fun eating and decorating cupcakes. This was part of the five minutes that they actually sat at the table, then for the next hour and a half, they were running and screaming up and down the sidewalks and through the yards of our four houses. They even had two of the family dogs running with them for a time. They came in when it got dark and were sweaty, wet, and covered in bug spray and wet grass, so it was a quick shower and off to bed, but they had a great time. Mark and I enjoyed just hanging out and chatting with the parents of the kids and our other neighbor with teenage kids (who got cupcakes also but didn't have to sit at the kid table) who are all awesome neighbors.
After exploring in the woods, we headed back up to the house to start grinding up our berries and making the paper. We didn't forsee the trouble ahead...
We spread out the berries, and, using rocks they'd found in the stream, they mashed the berries, then we put the mashed berries into a blender with torn pieces of paper (As my Dad pointed out, we were making paper with paper? Yes, because we're working with toddlers), water, and some other things. 
As we're putting the blended concauction onto the screen, things started to take a downward turn. I had felt a burning sensation on my hands but didn't really pay much attention to it. I had an itch on my neck that I scratched, then my whole neck was itching and burning. Lyla started crying and scratching and rubbing her arms, my mom's hands and part of her legs were itching and burning, and Nina (surprisingly) had no issues except little red blotches on her cheeks. Evidentally, we'd picked, crushed, and blended something we shouldn't have. It was quickly up to the bath to get all their clothes off and washed and their skin soapy and washed. After the bath, they felt much better.
Being the well-prepared mother that I am (as evidenced in other posts), I don't come with a back-up outfit, so while their clothes washed and dried, Lyla wore a make-shift tank top, and this is what Nina picked out to wear.
After our toxic paper experience, we decided to finish up our paper making with some good old berries from the grocery store. While it wasn't as "natural" as our other paper, it didn't leave us all itching and burning.
Here are our finished products - the natural, toxic paper that we didn't take home.
Our other paper made with berries from the store and flower petals from my mom's deck. Last night when I brought them in after completely drying, they look really neat. It was a fun experience for the girls (aside from the itching and burning skin), and a creative way to spend the morning.
...look at it in a different way, take a litte time, mix it up a bit...
...and make something fantastic!
